A microfiche appendix is attached to the application including 29 pages and 177 microfiche.
This invention relates to a cable management system which provides routing of telephony, low and high speed data, power and video, between service lines and user lines under computer control and, more particularly, to such a system wherein peripheral devices connected to the lines can be identified.
When wiring a commercial building, it is conventional that all of the services carried by wire, such as telephony, low and high speed data, power and video, enter the building for termination at respective patch panels. The patch panels are typically located within wiring closets and include a first array of terminations for the service lines which enter the building and a second array of terminations for the user lines which extend within the building to various user stations. Within each patch panel, the connections between the service lines and the user lines are made manually via jumper wires extending between the first array of terminations and the second array of terminations. In an ideal situation, records would be maintained as to where each wire goes within the building and to what it is connected. However, since the real world is not ideal, such records are not always properly maintained. In addition, wires are often tagged at the patch panels and the tags are lost or become outdated because of lack of updating. Therefore, when a technician is given a service order to add, move or change a connection, the technician must first determine exactly which physical wires are involved. This has proven to be a very time consuming and labor intensive chore. It has been proposed to provide a cable management system with automatic record keeping capability.
The proposed cable management system is interposed between a plurality of service lines and a plurality of user lines and includes a plurality of line termination units mounted on circuit cards which provide connections to the user lines and a plurality of service termination units which are mounted on circuit cards and provide connections to the service lines. Controllable switching means are coupled between the terminations to the user lines and the service lines for selectively providing physical electrical connections between selected ones of the service lines and selected ones of the user lines. A controller is provided to control the switching means to selectively make and open connections between the service lines and the user lines in accordance with received commands, the controller having a memory in which is stored a map of the connections made through the switching means. A management station is provided for issuing commands to the controller, the commands including a connect command to make a physical electrical connection through the switching means between a specified service line and a specified user line, and a disconnect command to open a physical electrical connection through the switching means between one or more specified service lines and one or more specified user lines.
In this cable management system, there is a centerplane board which has a first plurality of card edge connectors on a first side arranged in a first parallel array and a second plurality of card edge connectors on the other side arranged in a second parallel array orthogonal to the first parallel array. The first and second pluralities of card edge connectors are electrically interconnected through the centerplane board. The switching means are mounted on the circuit cards associated with the service termination units and these cards are installed in the card edge connectors on the first side of the centerplane board. The line termination unit circuit cards are installed in the card edge connectors on the other side of the centerplane board. Accordingly, any one or more of the plurality of service lines can be connected to any one or more of the plurality of user lines through the switching means. The controller is mounted on a circuit card and installed in one of the card edge connectors on the first side of the centerplane board. A plurality of conductive bus lines are disposed on the centerplane board and are electrically interconnected to all the card edge connectors on both sides of the centerplane board. A respective transceiver coupled to the bus lines is provided on each of the circuit cards for the controller, the service termination units and the line termination units for effecting communications therebetween over the bus lines.
The cable management system has the capability of generating a map including information as to what type of circuit card is installed in each card edge connector on the centerplane board. Each service termination unit circuit card also has the ability to sense the presence or absence of a line termination unit circuit card in each of the card edge connectors on the other side of the centerplane board so that all connections through the switching means to a particular card edge connector remain open when no line termination unit circuit card is installed in that card edge connector and remains open until a card is installed and there is a command to make a connection to that card.
While the aforedescribed system is capable of generating a map of itself, it would be desirable for the system to be able to construct a map which identifies peripheral devices (assets) connected to all of the lines. With this capability, the system operator can keep track of computers, telephones, etc., connected to the cable management system. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an arrangement whereby the peripheral devices connected to each line can be identified.